Intoxication
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: Harry meets someone in the shower when he's been drinking. SLASH Harry/Percy


A/N: Well…I've been drinking, again. So…this got written in a sort of half-doze, and I haven't the slightest idea of what to make of it. Tell me if you like it, though. I'd appreciate having something nice to read while nursing my hangover tomorrow morning.

**Intoxication**

Do you know what I love? I love being drunk and wet, late at night. You'll never find that in one of those magazine interviews with me, so please do feel flattered that I'm confiding in you this way.

That said, the above comment could be misinterpreted fairly easily, so I'd like to clarify that I am a man and I enjoy taking showers when I'm just drunk enough for things to start going pleasantly golden and wavy. Preferably late at night, when night turns to morning, so I have the extra endorphins from that added to the cocktail of sensations.

I've never told anyone that I love that, the dulled sensation of warm water lulling me into a trance and the tiles swimming like a watercolor painting through my half-lidded eyes. I don't know how I _could _tell someone. It's not the sort of thing you can tie into casual conversation or announce to a stranger on the street, though the latter would be a tremendous prank.

I don't have a drinking problem. Hermione says I shouldn't drink every day or I'll overload my liver and destroy my skin, but Hermione also says that you should never go outside barefoot in case you step on a hidden rusty metal bit that will puncture your skin and infect you and then kill you in a horrible, painful way. There is such a thing as being too careful.

Drinking just enough to lull me into this gorgeous blurred world every night can't possibly be as bad for me as staying up for weeks at a time working on a painting or smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I'm an artist, and according to history, we're pre-disposed to having horrible habits. People ought to be pleased that I haven't any crazed mistresses or a desire to cut off my own ear. It takes my mind off of the too-long days and the loneliness that never seems to go away.

I'm talking about this now because I'm in the shower as we speak. The water is hot enough to turn my feet as red as lipstick and my veins to bulging worms squirming just beneath my skin. It's nice…it's better than nice; it's wonderful.

You see, I can't relax anymore unless I'm here inside the shower, drunker than a sailor on leave. I don't know how I got to this point, but here I am and here I stay.

I wasn't expecting you to come visit me. We don't get on, even though it's been years since school and years since the twins teased you and called you Perfect Prefect Percy. You're very handsome, though, and you blush when you see me standing here without a shower curtain or even some fogged glass in the shower.

Because it's lonely here in this big old house, a house that should've been filled with Sirius' noisy footsteps and jokes about his ancestors, I crook my finger at you. I don't care that you're a man or that you're Ginny's brother. You come closer, timid as a mouse, and it doesn't take much for me to decide that kissing you is a good idea. You don't struggle, and I drink you in like I do the heat of the shower and the swirling paisley of alcohol.

You taste like tea and hobnobs, but plenty good besides.

I kiss you the next morning too, long after we've left the shower and I fell asleep on top of you all tangled up like children in my striped bedclothes. You turn red, making your freckles stand out like crimson sprinkles on cream frosting.

My head hurts like a hurricane, but I can't help admiring you.

You leave in a hurry, saying something about work so fast I can barely understand you. Just before leaving, you touch the canvas of one of my old paintings, an abstract all done up in red and blue and green and flecks of gold leaf. You say you like it, quieter than a baby's sigh. I smile, and I'm not surprised when you return the next night to join me beneath the hypnotic spray of water.

I never asked why you showed up that first night, and, truthfully, I don't care why. All I care about is having you there every night as I drown in two kinds of liquid and your lips.

Somehow, your mouth makes me far drunker than any liquor I've ever tasted. And I'm not lonely anymore.

~000~

End Intoxication

I have a love-hate relationship with the bottle of vodka in my freezer.


End file.
